Excerpt

Foreword
By Walter Isaacson

In his 1943 book, Physics and Philosophy, Sir James Jeans told us that our thinking regarding ideas “usually advances by a succession of small steps, through a fog in which even the most keen-sighted explorer can seldom see more than a few steps ahead. Occasionally the fog lifts, perspective is gained, and a wider stretch of territory can be surveyed—sometimes with startling results.” In the wake of a big idea—one capable of lifting the fog that we have been operating in—we don’t see the world in quite the same way anymore. Our approach to thinking about an issue gets rearranged. Perspectives shift, fragments of ideas fit together in ways we didn’t think about previously. All this can come from an idea—one that is not a small step, but rather a big leap!

Ideas of this type are rare, but when they appear on the scene they certainly make themselves known. Megacommunities will undoubtedly become one of these ideas. And it couldn’t come at a more appropriate time.

We are all in desperate need of game-changing ideas. Why? The simple answer is that we face a growing list of complex and challenging issues, and as a society we increasingly find ourselves stuck. Not necessarily for a lack of trying, or for a lack of appreciation of the consequences. We know that these issues—global climate change, preparing for pandemics, responding to natural disasters, global terrorism, water scarcity, aging populations, aging infrastructure, to name but a few—have the potential to become massive challenges in the next few years. And these problems manifest on both global and local levels. Consider how the need to develop new anti-terrorism or anti-pandemic initiatives applies not just globally but city by city, or how new levels of natural disaster—and new drains on government resources—can lead to situations like the one experienced in Biloxi, Mississippi or New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.

These issues are the “Gordian knots” of our time—we can see them clearly, but they don’t seem to have any clear solution. Unfortunately, we cannot cleave them in two and call it quits. We need to attempt to solve them. But the dynamic nature of the issues makes top-down, command-and-control and reductionist management methods ineffective. Instead, this situation calls for innovative, integrative and holistic leadership approaches.

In this book, the authors introduce us to just such an approach. They present a new way of thinking—a big idea—that promotes and supports mutual leadership. Their approach would bring decision-makers from the government, business and civil society sectors together to actively address shared issues. The concepts contained in the book are quite timely, because the ability to act decisively in the face of this new complexity is fast becoming a major priority for leaders in the three sectors.

This new complexity is a natural consequence of a world made smaller by greater integration and interdependency. Issues that arise in this environment can abruptly and unpredictably escalate, with a scale and magnitude that can quickly overwhelm the effected institutions. As a result, leaders from all three sectors face a growing need to operate in a more open, distributed and collaborative manner that recognizes the shared nature of risks, rewards and responsibility. Unfortunately, this type of activity is not intuitive for most leaders.

This is a book that will help readers embrace this new style of leadership—one that is as effective at facilitating cooperation among leaders in other sectors and organizations as it is within one’s own organization. And it will help leaders realize that the megacommunity lessons learned can be applied at every level of tri-sector interaction, from the most international to the most narrowly-targeted community level.

I first began working with Booz Allen on this important question in 2004, when it was featured in the first Aspen Ideas Festival. In a panel session titled “Malignant and Malevolent Threats: Dealing with Potential Disasters both Natural and Terrorist-Planned,” we explored how threats have acquired a new urgency in our “globalized” world. The increasing movement of people, capital, and ideas across national borders has brought with it new vulnerabilities. The discussion focused on the fact that these threats cannot be dealt with entirely as a problem of corporate strategy, operations and governance, or through legislation and regulation alone. Pan-global events such as SARS, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the tsunami in South Asia helped raised our awareness about the economic and societal consequences of a world that has grown more connected. Yet globalization contains a very intriguing paradox: the more interdependent we become, the more we require order.

In attempting to deal with this paradox, we find ourselves facing a very complex situation. New levels of complexity, then, are really at the heart of the challenges we all face today as leaders. Dealing with complexity is a long standing and ongoing role of leaders in business and government, but dealing with complexity on this scale introduces new challenges. Our challenge—and the challenge that this book tackles—is one that is on everyone’s mind: what can leaders do to more effectively confront the complexity in the world today? Our panel in 2004 explored this question, and set many of us off on a new vector related to global complexity.

The following year, we expanded this issue at the Ideas Festival into a track of its own, called Global Dynamics. This is the term my colleagues at Booz Allen use to capture a new way of thinking about issues which focuses as much on understanding the complexity of the issue, as it does on solving it. The panels in the Global Dynamics Track at Aspen focus on new ways of making sense of the complexity surrounding these issues; on better understanding their geopolitical, cultural, and biological roots; and on formulating the multilateral, multi-sector, collaborative, and innovative solutions necessary to address these problems on both the local and global level.

I have heard the authors refer to this as a situation where “practice is leading theory,” which to my mind means that if you can clear away the fog surrounding the issue, there is a big idea underneath. And this big idea has significant implications for all of us. The megacommunity idea will lead us to the sorts of solutions that can effectively address complex issues—and not a moment too soon.